Moore says that he will let the process play out before conceding election to Jones

Even though the numbers show that Democrat Doug Jones was clearly the winner of the U.S. Senate seat, the Roy Moore campaign refused to concede and decided instead to wait for the final totals from the campaign to be tabulated.

“Wait on God and let this process play out,” Moore told his supporters.

“May God bless you as you go on, give you safe journey, and thank you for coming tonight,” Moore concluded when he dismissed his campaign watch party. “It’s not over and it’s going to take some time.”

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At 11:00 p.m., the Alabama Political Reporter and other reporters met with Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill about the vote certification process.

Merrill said that we still have to count all of the provisional and military ballots and to process all of the write-ins. Merrill said that a write-in is only valid if it were for someone who is constitutionally eligible. The example he gave is of a cartoon character. If they are not eligible to be senator that vote would not count in the final tabulation.

APR asked Merrill if he knew how many military and provisional ballots of those ballots there are. Merrill said that he did not. That they are all at the county level.

Merrill said that certification of the vote should occur sometime between the Dec. 26 and Jan. 3.

If the final count is within .5 percent there would be an automatic recount. The Moore campaign could still ask for a recount; but they would have to pay for it. The military ballots and provisional ballots will be counted on Dec. 19 at the county level.

According to Merrill’s office On Friday the counties will actually report to the Secretary of State the total number of write-in votes cast.

On Monday, the Secretary of State will notify the counties as to whether write-ins must be tabulated for each county.

On Tuesday the County Canvassing Boards will count the provisional ballots, the UOCAVA absentee ballots, and if necessary the write-in votes.

On Friday the County Canvassing Boards return and declare the results. They transmit the official results to the Secretary of State’s office.

On January 3 the State Canvassing Board meets.

If Moore was defeated by less than .5 percent it would trigger an automatic recount paid for by the state. This would commence within 72 hours of the certification of the election results by the State Canvassing board, unless Moore were to submit a written waiver to the Secretary of State within 24 hours of the State Canvassing Board Meeting.

While Moore supporters may harbor some hopes that thousands of military ballots are waiting to be counted; that seems unlikely.

Of those that voted,671,151 voters selected Doug Jones and 650,436 voted for Moore. Another 22,819 voted absentee ballot. On a percentage basis, Jones got 49.9 percent of the vote, Roy Moore got 48.4 percent of the vote and the write-in candidates got 1.7 percent. The difference between Jones and Moore is 1.5 percent. In other words, Moore is going to have to pick up very approximately 13,810 votes from the provisional ballots and the military absentee ballots to trigger that automatic recount.

“I find that to be highly improbable,” Merrill said.

Moore and his campaign did not fully understand the size of the hurdles confronting them when they made this decision. Then only 98 percent of the boxes had reported in and the margin was less than one percent; however 65 of the 67 counties had reported 100 percent of their boxes at that time. The two counties that were dragging were Mobile and Jefferson and Moore was crushed in all the heavily populated counties, including Jefferson. By the time we got the final numbers, well after midnight, that margin of victory for Jones had increased to 1.5 percent.

Jones clearly appears to be the winner of the special election to replace Jeff Sessions in the U.S. Senate.

Clinton era U.S. Attorney Doug Jones appears to have defeated former Alabama Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in an election that garnered an unusual amount of publicity in a state where no Democrat has won a U.S. Senate race since 1992. Richard Shelby, who changed to the Republican Party just four years later, was the last Democrat to win a U.S. Senate seat from Alabama.

Ironically it was perhaps Senator Shelby’s vocal refusal to support Moore likely was a major factor in Moore’s inability to unite all of the factions of the Republican on election day.

Shelby said that Alabama deserves better than Moore and that he would be writing in the name of a prominent Republican in place of Moore. Over 20,000 Alabamians also wrote in a candidate and Moore lost by just 20,715 votes.

House passes General Fund Budget

The Alabama House of Representatives passed the state General Fund Budget on Tuesday.

The General Fund Budget for the 2019 fiscal year is Senate Bill 178. It is sponsored by Sen. Trip Pittman, R-Montrose. State Rep. Steve Clouse, R-Ozark, carried the budget on the House floor. Clouse chairs the House Ways and Means General Fund Committee.

Clouse said, “Last year we monetized the BP settlement money and held over $97 million to this year.”

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Clouse said that the state is still trying to come up with a solution to the federal lawsuit over the state prisons. The Governor’s Office has made some progress after she took over from Gov. Robert Bentley. The supplemental we just passed added $30 million to prisons.

The budget adds $50 million to the Department of Corrections.

Clouse said that the budget increased the money for prisons by $55,680,000 and includes $4.8 million to buy the privately-owned prison facility in Perry County.

Clouse said that the budget raises funding for the judicial system and raises the appropriation for the Forensic Sciences to $11.7 million.

The House passed a committee substitute so the Senate is either going to have to concur with the changes made by the House or a conference committee will have to be appointed. Clouse told reporters that he hoped that it did not have to go to conference.

Clouse said that the budget had added $860,000 to hire more Juvenile Probation Officers. After talking to officials with the court system that was cut in half in the amendment. The amendment also includes some wording the arbiters in the court lawsuit think we need.

The state General Fund Budget, SB178, passed 98-1.

Both budgets have now passed the Alabama House of Representatives.

The 2019 fiscal year begins on Oct. 1, 2018.

In addition to the SGF, the House also passed a supplemental appropriation for the current 2018 budget year. SB175 is also sponsored by Pittman and was carried by Clouse on the floor of the House.

SB175 includes $30 million in additional 2018 money for the Department of Corrections. The Departmental Emergency Fund, the Examiners of Public Accounts, the Insurance Department and Forensic Sciences received additional money.

Clouse said, “We knew dealing with the federal lawsuit was going to be expensive. We are adding $80 million to the Department of Corrections.”

State Representative Johnny Mack Morrow, R-Red Bay, said that state Department of Forensics was cut from $14 million to $9 million. “Why are we adding money for DA and courts if we don’t have money for forensics to provide evidence? if there is any agency in law enforcement or the court system that should be funded it is Forensics.”

The supplemental 2018 appropriation passed 80 to 1.

The House also passed SB203. It was sponsored by Pittman and was carried in the House by State Rep. Ken Johnson, R-Moulton. It raises securities and registration fees for agents and investment advisors. It increases the filing fees for certain management investment companies. Johnson said that those fees had not been adjusted since 2009.

The House also passed SB176, which is an annual appropriation for the Coalition Against Domestic Violence. The bill requires that the agency have an operations plan, audited financial statement, and quarterly and end of year reports. SB176 is sponsored by Pittman and was carried on the House floor by State Rep. Elaine Beech, D-Chatham.

The House passed Senate Bill 185 which gives state employees a cost of living increase in the 2019 budget beginning on October 1. It was sponsored by Sen. Clyde Chambliss, R-Prattville and was being carried on the House floor by state Rep. Dimitri Polizos, R-Montgomery.

Polizos said that this was the first raise for non-education state employees in nine years. It is a 3 percent raise.

SB185 passed 101-0.

Senate Bill 215 gives retired state employees a one time bonus check. SB215 is sponsored by Senator Gerald Dial, R-Lineville, and was carried on the House floor by state Rep. Kerry Rich, R-Guntersville.

Rich said that retired employees will get a bonus $1 for every month that they worked for the state. For employees who retired with 25 years of service that will be a $300 one time bonus. A 20-year retiree would get $240 and a 35-year employee would get $420.

SB215 passed the House 87-0.

The House passed Senate Bill 231, which is the appropriation bill increase amount to the Emergency Forest Fire and Insect and Disease Fund. SB231 is sponsored by Sen. Steve Livingston, R-Scottsboro, and was carried on the House floor by state Rep. Kyle South, R-Fayette.

State Rep. Elaine Beech, D-Chathom, said, “Thank you for bringing this bill my district is full of trees and you never know when a forest fire will hit.

SB231 passed 87-2.

The state of Alabama is unique among the states in that most of the money is earmarked for specific purposes allowing the Legislature little year-to-year flexibility in moving funds around.

The SGF includes appropriations for the Alabama Medicaid Agency, the courts, the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency, the Alabama Department of Corrections, mental health, and most state agencies that are no education related. The Alabama Department of Transportation gets their funding mostly from state fuel taxes.

The Legislature also gives ALEA a portion of the gas taxes. K-12 education, the two year college system, and all the universities get their state support from the education trust fund (ETF) budget. There are also billions of dollars in revenue that are earmarked for a variety of purposes that does not show up in the SGF or ETF budgets.

Examples of that include the Public Service Commission, which collects utility taxes from the industries that it regulates. The PSC is supported entirely by its own revenue streams and contributes $13 million to the SGF. The Secretary of State’s Office is entirely funded by its corporate filing and other fees and gets no SGF appropriation.

Clouse warned reporters that part of the reason this budget had so much money was due to the BP oil spill settlement that provided money for the 2018 budget and $97 million for the 2019 budget. Clouse said they elected to make a $13 million repayment to the Alabama Trust fund that was not due until 2020 but that is all that was held over for 2020.

Clouse predicted that the Legislature will have to make some hard decisions about revenue in next year’s session.

Day Care bill delayed for second time on Senate floor, may be back Thursday

The day care bill, which would license certain day care centers in Alabama, was once again delayed on the state Senate floor after one lawmaker requested more information.

Its brief appearance Tuesday ended with state Sen. Gerald Dial, R-Lineville, saying a compromise had not yet been worked out with the bill’s detractors.

Alabama’s Senate has been hesitant to act on the legislation because of complaints of state Sen. Shay Shelnutt, R-Trussville, who has been an opponent of the bill since its introduction last year. The bill’s delay on Tuesday marks the second time its been taken off the Senate’s agenda.

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The bill has had a rocky time in this year’s session, but the bill’s sponsor state Rep. Pebblin Warren, D-Tuskegee, said she is still confident about its passage out of the Legislature.

Warren, D-Tuskegee, filed the bill this session with the support of influential lawmakers including Gov. Kay Ivey, who told reporters last year that she though all day cares should be licensed.

Mainly sparked by the death of 5-year-old boy in the care of a unlicensed day care worker, the bill had great momentum coming into this year’ session.

Despite the growing support from lawmakers, Religious groups had concerns that the bill would increase state-sponsored reach into religious day cares in churches and non-profit groups.

Warren, proponents, and ALCAP announced a compromise to the bill while it was still in the Alabama House.

Announced by ALCAP originally, the new bill was a weaker version in that it did not require that all day cares in the state be regulated. Instead, religious-based day cares would only need to be registered if they received federal funds. At a Senate committee meeting in February, Warren said a similar requirement was about to come from federal law in Congress.

The bill moved through the House in a overwhelming vote in favor of the proposal and passed unanimously out of a Senate committee a few weeks ago.

Warren, speaking to reporters after its passage from the House, said she was unsure if the bill would encounter resistance in the upper chamber.

It was the Senate that killed the daycare bill last year amid a cramped last day where senators took the bill off the floor. The bill may face similar complications this year, as lawmakers seem to be preparing to adjourn within a few weeks.

Speaking to reporter’s after the committee meeting, Sanford said the decision to file the bill was mainly a philosophical belief that the practice shouldn’t be illegal.

Sanford, a fantasy sports player before its ban, said that fantasy sports are a way to bring people closer together and not a means to win money. The Huntsville senator is not seeking re-election.

The bill’s failure in the Senate follows its trajectory last year too. A similar version of the bill, also sponsored by Sanford, failed in the Senate during the final days of the 2017 Legislative Session.

Since Sanford is retiring, it is unclear if the bill will even come back next session, or if it will even have a Senate sponsor.